As we enter the home straight of Desperate Housewives (Wed, 11.30pm, Channel 4), with just three episodes left before the eighth season ends and the show bows out for good, I think I'll miss the kitchens most of all. They were so beautiful. I would happily live on a street full of murderers, nosy parkers, predatory divorcees, arson attacks, suicide attempts, car accidents, electrocutions and plane crashes if it meant I could have something as light, airy and perfectly appointed as the rooms at the hearts of all the homes along Wisteria Lane. Then again, if your strongest emotional attachment to a series is via its set design, it's probably time for at least one of you to go.

It was always a preposterous show – but at the beginning, gloriously so. The first season introduced us to five friends: Susan, a children's book illustrator with an unaccountable fondness for wearing 17 vest tops at once – making her look like a human Viennetta – and a completely accountable fondness for the Lane's new plumber, Mike Delfino; Lynette, a formerly high-flying businesswoman with a terrible disease that made her body apparently resistant to all known forms of contraception and that turned her, therefore, into a reluctant stay-at-home mom; Gaby, a tiny trophy wife whose young gardener was exercising the remaining part of her that daily Pilates could not reach; Bree van der Kamp – name like a German cheese, face like Dresden china – domestic goddess, control freak and proud owner of the largest collection of twinsets in captivity; and Mary Alice, who kills herself just before the pilot episode begins and spends the better part of the next decade narrating events from the great beyond. The remaining four spend the rest of the season Nancy Drewing the reason for her suicide. Bad hair? Inadequate wardrobe? Perhaps her kitchen was not up to snuff? No – it turned out she and her husband kind of killed a drug addict, who was Mike Delfino's sister, and kept her baby as their own. Paint that, Norman Rockwell! Nice underbelly, American dream! Of course it was soapy, frothing madness. But creator Marc Cherry kept all its disparate elements in check and never quite let it stray into farce.

But then Cherry left. He came back after a woeful season two, but the Housewives never truly recovered. Later series were relocated to Absurdistan and would have made Feydeau weep. The actors' appearances also became increasingly odd. And yes, it's legitimate to talk about it because it was genuinely distracting. Trout pouts. Immobile faces. Emaciated bodies. Teri Hatcher took on the look of a woman haunted by dreams of sandwiches past. It was uncomfortable. By season six the whole thing looked like the finals of a depraved eating disorder competition and you couldn't follow the story for worrying about the energy it was costing clearly starving people.

But 180 minutes from now, it will all be over. And I will miss it, because we've had some good – if unfeasible, insane and frustrating – times together, the desperate housewives and I. Watching the evolution of Eva Longoria's comedy chops was a constant delight. Marcia Cross as Bree frequently held whole episodes together. And Felicity Huffman is always better than we or anyone else deserves. Now, for the love of God, will you finally get yourselves into one of those kitchens and eat some frigging cake? Thank you.